This week, envoys from the Trump administration are in Copenhagen, presumably arguing what President Donald Trump has been saying for years. Neither Denmark or Greenland alone, he claims, can protect the island against the Russian and Chinese threat in the Arctic.
They will likely find that, curiously, Denmark and its self-governing territory of Greenland totally agree. And that’s what is making Mr. Trump’s campaign to acquire the island so puzzling to many experts. When viewed through the lens of history, the move seems unnecessary.
Since the end of World War II, Denmark has repeatedly acknowledged that Greenland is an important piece in the larger game of global power and supported U.S. efforts to use the island for its own defense.
Why We Wrote This
The United States has attempted to annex Greenland several times in the past. But it also has a history of cooperation with Denmark on Greenland’s security – so much so that it’s dubious that direct control would be better for U.S. defense.
What began as a plea to the United States to defend the island from Nazi Germany during World War II has since expanded dramatically. A 1951 treaty essentially gives the U.S. a blank check on the island, militarily.
In that context, the Trump administration’s determination to own Greenland is “befuddling,” says Paul Bierman, author of “When the Ice Is Gone,” a military and scientific history of Greenland. The U.S. should be able to accomplish virtually any strategic aim without taking over the island.
“I don’t know why they don’t just act to put 10,000 U.S. troops in Greenland,” he adds.
Greenland has long been seen as a potentially key part of American defense.
In the latter half of the 19th century, “some American strategic thinkers thought that by acquiring Alaska on the west and Greenland on the east, it would put pressure on British Canada, the real prize,” historian Henry William Brands Jr. recently told Le Monde. U.S. Secretary of State William Seward – who led the purchase of Alaska in 1867 – went so far as to commission a survey of Greenland.
Thomas Traasdahl/Sipa USA/AP/File
In 1910, the American ambassador to Denmark proposed an “audacious” exchange including parts of the Philippines, Denmark, and Germany that would have seen control of Greenland switch to the U.S., though a formal plan never materialized. Then Denmark rejected a U.S. offer of $100 million in gold for the island in 1946.
World War II and its aftermath appeared to largely settle the disputes. During the war, small camps of German troops used Greenland to collect data on weather patterns heading toward European battlefields. U.S. troops (including dog patrols) helped roust them from the island in what’s been called the “weather war.”
Since then, the U.S. and Denmark have largely been in lockstep, sometimes to an extraordinary degree.
That included the construction in 1951 of Thule Air Base, which at one time housed nuclear weapons and is now used for U.S. missile defense (and renamed Pituffik Space Base). But it also included the audacious Project Iceworm, which would have built train lines under the ice cap to secretly ferry nuclear weapons across the island.
The 1950s-era plan was rejected, but it speaks broadly to the ambitions America has had in Greenland for decades – and Denmark’s repeated willingness to give the U.S. wide latitude.
“At one point, we had over a dozen … military bases across the country, and that was because Greenland was pretty important in terms of defense against subs and any sort of attack from the north,” says Michael Williams, an associate professor of international affairs at Syracuse University.
Many experts agree that Greenland’s strategic importance is growing yet again. The Arctic Ocean is becoming more navigable amid climate change, and Russia and China are showing clear signs of aggression. But taking over the island is legally and ethically fraught and wouldn’t give the U.S. much that it doesn’t already have.
“Simply stating that the United States is very concerned about Arctic security and about Chinese and Russian actions and would like to increase our military presence there … I think it would happen,” says Dr. Williams. “Denmark has been one of – if not the – most loyal allies in NATO.”
